 Tucson's first CrossFit Kids Program  Barebones Barbell Club of Tucson: strength training, power lifting, Olympic Lifting, private weight lifting facility
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“Romanian deadlifts are an excellent assistance exercise for deadlifts and squats. They build muscle and power in the hamstrings and glutes and also hit the lower back quite well. The Romanian deadlift is great for athletes because it’s performed in the stance very similar to the “ready position” used in so many sports (hips down, knees bent, flat back…think a linebacker or the position of the body pre-jump).” -EliteFTS
 The Conditioning and the “Ready Position”
In our January Blueprint program this month we focused on the Romanian Dead Lift, the G-Row and the Behind-the-Neck Strict Press. It was very exciting to see the evolution of everyone’s command over these very basic movements. There were a handful of women in the 5:30am class who began their RDLs earlier this month at 75lbs and finished up today trying to squeeze in an extra set so they could try 145lbs! What was more exciting was that there was no diffference in form between their warm up sets and their ending sets. We watched many of you who are quad-dominant athletes learn to engage the posterior chain and finish the deadlift with the correct body parts!!!
The Behind-the-Neck Strict Press is certainly no one’s idea of the world’s most exciting lift, but for those of you whose over head squats have never been quite in-hand, or those of you who dread the Bear Complex due to the possibility of smashing the bar down on your delicate vertebrae, AND for those of you whose strict pullups are still elusive, this is a quite useful lift. Establishing complete control over an external object (like a barbell) no matter where it is relative to your body is a fundamental feat.
The G-Row might also not win any awards for favorite lift. Glamorous it is not. But, I saw your lats work! I saw your shoulder blades squeeze together! Oh, the places you can go after a few weeks of G-Rows.
The conditioning work this month was…conditioning. Simple, safe movements chosen so that you can go at 110% effort. We alternated quite a lot with static work so that you develop the capacity to be in complete control of your position in space even when under heavy fatigue. Especially in control of your mid-section, that oft-times uncooperative section between your bottom ribs and your hips.
Get ready for a new suite of movements to master. February is upon us!
Tonight 5:45 Performance CrossFit and tomorrow 11:30 All Gym CrossFit Workout.
I’ve had some questions about why we don’t have as many eggs for sale as we have in the past. There is sometimes a little undertone that someone (or some chicken!) is not doing their job properly.
Even us nutrition-conscious CrossFitters sometimes lose touch with the fact that a food so ubiquitous as the Egg, is actually a seasonal food. Chickens that are not kept in a concrete bunker with their beaks chopped off, dosed with antibiotics and kept under artificial light, do not lay as many eggs in the winter as they do in the summer. It has to do with the number of hours they are exposed to light and dark. The human reproductive system actually operates in the same manner, but we’ll leave that out of the discussion for now. Food production is affected by so many things that most of us denizens of Trader Joe’s forget about too often. For example, my kids and I used to love the frequency with which we would find a double-yolked egg in our carton. Tragically, Mark (the farmer of our eggs) lost the double-yolk laying chicken to his neighbor’s uncontrolled, trespassing dogs. I encourage you all, when you are inconvenienced by a change in your local food supply, to inquire as to what caused the change. Many of the Tucson area local farmers are affected by such things as a neighbor’s dog or an unexpected cold night. Rather than be exasperated by the unpredictable change, use it as a chance to try something different, or simply to appreciate the abundance of alternative foods that we all live with every day. No broccoli at the Farmer’s Market? Well get yourselves one of those enormous, luscious pale green cabbages then.
When we do have eggs, try your very best not to overcook the precious yolk. Overcooking the yolk ruins the perfect fats that are in it and renders the sulfur-bearing amino acids less available. Those amino acids are what your body uses to build our most potent anti-oxidants and detoxifiers like glutathione. You can’t take glutathione as a supplement because it doesn’t survive our digestive system, but you can ingest plenty of the precursor nutrients like those found in raw or slightly cooked egg yolks.
Check out this description of one farmer’s approach to raising chickens:
” …this pasture was the field that had been, a day or two before, occupied by the cattle, which were now behind us in another demarcated area of green grass. In addition to enjoying the grass that has been courteously mowed down for them by the cattle (chickens don’t like to eat grasses that are too high), they peck through the cow pies, eating the larvae of flies that lay their eggs in the dung. This disinfects the cow pies breaking the cycle of bovine stomach parasites , eliminating the need for synthetic worm medicines for the cattle. Their pecking also breaks up the cow pies and spreads them out over a larger area. This means that the manure recycles into the soil much more readily. Otherwise, the nitrogen in the manure would concentrate in certain spots, creating overly rich bunches of grass that cows refuse to eat.” -Full Moon Feast, by Jessica Prentice.
If you are interested in learning more about these sorts of food issues join us for the upcoming nutrition class. More information at www.primalplan.com.
We know you all lead very busy and adventurous lives that often involve quite a bit of travel. Some of you end up in hotels with at least minimal facilities and some of you end up places with no “workout” stuff. Here are some travel workout ideas for you:
1. The Tabata Interval. The Tabata protocol was invented by a Japanese exercise physiologist for the speed skating team. It works. Better than anything else. If you do it correctly. Resist the temptation to expand upon it. It only works because you can do it at such high intensity. The original protocol was 6 rounds: 20sec of work, 10sec rest. You must feel like you will actually collapse at the end or you have not worked at high intensity. If you feel the need to do something else afterwards, you did not do this correctly. Choose movements you can do maniacally! Don’t do pushups if you can only do 3 in 20sec. If you have access to a treadmill, set it on a grade and do Tabata treadmill sprints. If you are near a park or on a street with a little hill, do Tabata hill sprints. You can do squats, jump rope or box jumps for Tabata intervals. If you don’t have a box use a park bench or a curb.
2. Static, isometric work. Go five rounds of 45 sec work, 45sec rest. Do planks (all variations). Dead hangs. Handstand holds at the wall.
3. Alternate a static movement with a dynamic movement. Run around the block (or 200m on a treadmill) and then hold a plank or a handstand. Go 5 rnds with the static work being a max hold.
4. Don’t forget about the burpee. Do five rounds of 10 burpees with 30 sec rest in between. Practise making your burpees the most efficient that you can, with as little transition time on the ground as possible.
5. Focus on virtuosity with the movements. If your pushups are not always legit, use your hotel time to do them as slowly as you need to with perfection. If your air squats are often quad-dominant (knees forward) practise sitting back into them, pausing at the bottom and picking up your toes while you are down there. Keep your hands straight up over your head.
6. Pack a jump rope. Work on your double unders. Work on being able to do 100 single jumps per minute for three minutes straight.
7. If you feel the need to “CrossFit” try: 3 rounds of 400m run, 15 pushups, 15 lunges each leg, 15 situps.
8. If you are in a facility with a Gravitron hop on that thing and have fun! Assisted dips and pullups are good for the ego.
9. Work on your L-position hand stand pushups (for the skill checklist!). Park benches and coffee tables are perfect for this sort of thing. All those pillows on the hotel bed will keep your head safe too.
10. Use “running at the wall” to get your heart rate up in your room. Just stand facing the wall, place your hands on it, lean into it and run in place as fast as you can. Do 30 sec, drop down, do some pushups, rest 30 sec, repeat.
This week you should be seeing some random pieces of paper hanging on the gym walls. Closer inspection should reveal that these pieces of paper are food journals. The competitive crossfitters at CrossFit Works will be hanging their food journals. Why would they do this you might ask?
 Performance CrossFit with a little partner workout
A few really good reasons.
There is a tendency to focus on the work that happens in the gym and how it contributes to performance. We want to know how many times a week someone trains, do they do two-a-days, what is their squat program etc… I receive a boatload of questions about certain people’s training. Including things as crazy as “what kind of ab work could get me abs like so-and-so’s?”. Someone needs to start asking me what these athletes are eating!!!
It is important to me that all the people in the gym realize that food is the foundation for your body composition and your performance. It is also important to realize that there isn’t one magic answer to what to eat. What you should see on these food journals is a fairly wide spectrum in eating styles and amounts. You might be able to look at some of them and see that there are changes to be made that would help, but you also will want to remember that someone whose goal is to add 10lbs of muscle will eat in a VERY different way from someone whose goal is to cut 8lbs of body fat. Right now we have athletes preparing to compete in Olympic Lifting who will have to make particular weight classes. This is certainly not the easiest thing they have ever done. It means a major focus on food! Ironically, if your goals are simply to feel better and stay healthy, your major focus should also be on food!
I beg you all to keep a food journal. It is something that should be done on a regular basis if you really are interested in the connection between your food and your health and especially between your food and your performance. So, along with all the glamor and fame of competing at CrossFit, the competitive athletes will also hang up their food journals. In solidarity with them, I encourage all of you to tape up your food journals. They can even be anonymous. Just use this opportunity to buckle down and do this. Perfection is not expected. None of us are perfect. Just start the investigation process. If I see one that says “Fruity Pebbles” I will know whose that is, and if it says “Doritos and a sandwich” I might be able trace that one too. Seriously, this process is the most important step in understanding your own health and performance.
When you keep a food journal, record what you ate, about how much and when. You also want to record beverages. A serious investigation of food, performance and health would also include supplements, where you ate, how the food was prepared and your bathroom experience. Digestive function is paramount (although it is completely understandable if you leave that for your private food journal!). For specific body composition and performance goals, it becomes important to provide detailed measurements of food quantity. I encourage you to keep the level of food journal that matches your own personal goals. The tape will be on the counter…
If we did a word count on the most common coaching cues in our gym, “knees out” or some similar version, would probably top the list.
  Using a resistance band as a physical cue for an athlete to remember “knees out”
How come we are always pestering you about “knees out”? Usually “knees out” gets busted out during body weight squats or during the back squat. However, if you’ve ever dead lifted with me I might also have asked you to activate your knees in the starting position so that your knees contacts the inside of your elbow.
One important reason for aggressively activating the “knees out” position is so that you are recruiting as much of your posterior chain as possible. The posterior chain is primarily your lower back side (glutes and hamstrings). However, your adductors are another important large muscle group that should contribute to your posterior chain strength. If you are not activating your adductors you are missing out on some serious muscles. ”Knees out” serves to fire up the adductors, thus making you stronger. Always a good thing!
Another reason that “knees out” is a particularly repetitive cue for the women in the gym is that women have a structural geometry that makes it possible to give birth, but creates a little bit of a risky situation for our knees. In a man, the pelvis and knees are lines up, or the pelvis is even slightly narrower than the knees. If this is exaggerated then a man is bow-legged (a more common anatomical situation for men than for women). Some studies on physical characteristics and sex appeal, have found that bow-legged men are more sexually attractive to women. In a woman, the pelvis is wider than the knees creating a slight “knock-knee” effect. Women have five times higher ACL injuries than men. There are several reasons for this, including lower muscle strength, but this anatomical difference is one of the primary reasons.
As women, we have to be cognizant of this situation and double our efforts to create strong, safe legs and knees. As is often so clever with lifting and CrossFitting, the cure is in the exact work that highlights the problem! Squat more, but squat correctly. Often times people prefer the high bar, narrow foot stance that is the Olympic Lifting or front squat set up. This is fine and has excellent benefits. The concern is that this position is a quad-dominant one and is not as effective in addressing this particular knee/adductor issue. In our Blueprint Program and in Raw Strength we back squat with the bar just below the traps (=proper low bar placement) because this is the set up that creates the largest activation of our largest muscle groups (=how to get the most strong the most quickly!). It is also the one where we have to make a concerted effort to use the squat to strengthen our posterior chain while increasing the life long safety of our knees.
I know some people find it frustrating to be asked to reduce the load on the barbell when they feel as though “I could do more”. In fact, people have moved on to other training facilities over this exact issue. In our gym, we do not encourage teenagers, women, men, college athletes, middle-aged anybody, or senior anybodies (I hope I just included everyone right there) to load a barbell beyond what they can do in a manner which contributes to their lifelong strength and safety. The only exception to this might be people who are training for competition. There is often a time and place for competitive athletes to take more risk than a lifelong-athlete-for-health.
My hope is that by sharing with you all the research and information that forms the basis behind our training approach, you will be less frustrated by correction and you will develop an understanding of why we use the training methods and programs that we use here at CrossFit Works and Barebones Barbell! So, to my weight lifting Sisters…think “cowboy” next time you back squat!
This Saturday, if you are interested in assessing your skill set for Daily CrossFit, be at the gym at 9:30am. We will proceed through the list.
    Last Saturday’s Team Sledgehammer work!
Don’t forget our Saturday CrossFit class at 11:30-12:30!
The structure of the Skill Check is that you will move through the exercises in order they are listed. If you get stuck on one, you can move on. Each time you retest you will complete the entire list. Virtuosity with the movements is considered. Again, the reason behind this skill check list is that you remain safe and progress wisely with this strength and conditioning program. If you collapse at the waist with every back squat, although you manage to perform the squats with the correct weight, to the correct depth, I would be putting you at risk to call that solid. At CrossFit Works our goal for you is to develop your body like a pyramid with a solid, strong base that can support the world’s most challenging movements.
ROW
500M W-2:30/M-2:00
PUSHUPS
W-5/M-15
STRICT PULLUPS
W-2(CHINUPS)
M-2 (PULLUPS)
OVERHEAD SQUATS
10 REPS
W-25lbs/M-45lbs
PLANK
60SEC
BACK SQUAT
10 REPS @
BODYWEIGHT
SHOULDER PRESS
10 REPS@
1/3BW FOR W
1/2BW FOR M
DEADLIFT
3 REPS @
1.5 BW
POWER CLEAN
1RM@3/4BW and 10RM (W-65lbs/M-115)
HANDSTAND SKILL
Kick up to a handstand at the wall five times and 5 L-position handstand pushups
STATIC RING HOLD
maintaining a hollow body position (W-30sec/M-45sec)
RUN
400m run (W-2:20/M-2:00)
The Women-Only CrossFit class busted out the weight vests yesterday and finished up with some picture perfect Deadlift complexes. Very very inspired by this group of women who said they want a class of all women, but they don’t want an easier workout. Grab onto your bootstraps…
 Tonight at 6pm is the second in our Yoga For Athletes workshop series. You do not have to attend in order, so if you weren’t at the first one that is fine.
Saturday, Skill checklist for the Daily CrossFit Program. Come during Open Gym, 9:30 to 11:30. Even if you aren’t sure you will complete the checklist, it might help you to set goals for yourself.
Primal Plan, four week, eight hour nutrition learning lab registration is open. Go to www.primalplan.com to register.
Performance CrossFit will meet this Friday at 5:45.
Saturday CrossFit workout at 11:30.
What’s the first place to stop after two days of studying with the CrossFit Football crew? How about after the Tough Mudder? What about The OC Throwdown? First stop is the pharmacy for a couple giant bags of Epsom Salts, chemical composition Magnesium Sulfate.
Magnesium is an sadly neglected mineral. Lots of old school coaches go on and on about bananas and potassium. Every person in the world thinks they should be taking calcium supplements and most of us think we should avoid salt (sodium). Who talks about magnesium? Shockingly, magnesium is the mineral perhaps most powerfully correlated to critical health issues. Blood pressure and heart malfunctions are related to magnesium levels. Bone density and tooth decay are strongly correlated with magnesium levels. Neurological functions are connected to magnesium levels. Magnesium plays a role in muscle cramping (including menstrual cramps).
Magnesium is found in high concentrations in all organs which possess electrical conductivity, especially the heart and nervous system. Calcium and magnesium are antagonists in the electrical conductivity of the body. Without sufficient magnesium it becomes impossible to remove the calcium from a cell (where it has caused a cellular contraction). This buildup of calcium in the cells results in “hyper excitability” or prolonged muscular contraction. Twitches and tics are one example of this effect. Our stress response also uses large amounts of magnesium. Migraines are also shown to have a relationship with low magnesium levels. Our bodies metabolic processing of a single glucose molecule requires 28 molecules of magnesium. We also use magnesium to process the phosphates in soda and processed meats. If you take iron or calcium supplements you also increase your use of magnesium to bind to those minerals (this is an example of how taking a “supplement” can actually create a nutrient deficiency). Production and function of serotonin (your relaxation neurotransmitter) is also dependent on magnesium. Sweating depletes magnesium levels. Large scale studies in the 1940s and 1950s in Deaf Smith County Texas revealed that extremely high levels of magnesium in the ground water (their drinking water) was the reason that residents of that county had excellent teeth and minimal osteoporosis relative to their Dallas County neighbors. Flouride (added to water supplies) actually binds to magnesium rendering it less bioavailable to us. Low magnesium levels in the small intestine allow for increased absorption of aluminum, a toxic metal related to neurologic degeneration.
Why would we be deficient in magnesium? What if we eat an excellent diet?
Based on the preceeding paragraph it is clear that chronic stress can produce a deficiency in any nutrient used to combat that stress, including magnesium. Excess ingestion of calcium, phosphates or sugar can also deplete magnesium. Poor digestive health can impair absorption of magnesium.
Magnesium is primarily found in fruits and vegetables and bones (bone broth). Artichokes, tomato paste, almonds, pumpkin seeds, beet greens and dried figs have high magnesium levels. Halibut is the protein source with the on eof the higher levels. Unfortunately our current agricultural practice of dumping NPK fertilizers on our crops and soils lowers the magnesium content of the soil and consequently, our food. If you don’t eat adequate fruits and vegetables, or if you eat food from farms that do not follow sustainable farming practices, you will not be supplying your body with adequate magnesium.
What are we to do? Don’t despair. Easily absorbable magnesium supplements are available reasonable cheaply. My favorite is Natural Calm which is magnesium citrate (available at Sunflower and Whole Foods). If magnesium citrate gives you chronic loose stools (it is a smooth muscle relaxant remember) it might be that you have enough magnesium in your body or it might mean that you aren’t absorbing it correctly. Some practitioners advocate use of magnesium glycinate for people who don’t do well with the magnesium citrate. Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate. Dump about 5lbs in a nice hot bath and climb in. Your body will begin to sweat, opening your pores for you and once the water cools down slightly you will quickly transdermally absorb the magnesium. Magnesium sulfate has the added bonus of extra sulfur for you. Both magnesium and sulfur are used in the body’s detoxification pathways.
Even the scientists conclude that magnesium supplementation has benefits for athletes. A 2010 study in the Journal of Biological Trace Elements concluded that total and free testosterone levels were increased in athletes supplemented with magnesium. In 2009 the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that, in animals, supplementation with magnesium sulfates (Epsom salts) improved forced swimming. The process for this increased performance was elevation of glucose levels and attenuation of lactate levels.
A nice Epsom Salt bath is the first stop for the wise athlete.
If you watched football yesterday you might have seen this:
I think this means that CrossFit has officially become “mainstream”. You better believe this generates plenty of controversy in the world of CrossFit. At this gym, we see excellent potential for CrossFit because of their cooperation with Reebok, but we also haven’t forgotten what CrossFit was and what made it special. Obviously we think that CrossFit is the best general physical preparedness program. Why wouldn’t we want as many people as possible to participate? CrossFit changes lives. Spreading the word could save someone’s life. If Reebok’s exposure helps people begin to take care of themselves, to eat well and to get stronger then it is all good.
The concern expressed by some people within the CrossFit community is that CrossFit will be “watered down”, turned into the aerobics of the decade. This is happening of course. There are gyms offering “CrossFit” that hardly own any barbells and that are focusing on the same superficial nonsense fitness programs have always used to play to people’s insecurities: fit into skinnier jeans, get a spray on tan, get toned. All this brings up the question: is CrossFit right for everyone? Can CrossFit be a training program that is right for everyone? I think what made CrossFit special to begin with was that it was for people who were serious about their health and their physical fitness. They wanted to feel better and perform better. Looking good was the by product. Check that again. Feel better. Perform better, and, oh yeah, eating well and training hard will keep you looking good too. As long as we don’t reorganize the priorities CrossFit can still change the world.
 The Competitors
Today we have four competitors at The OC Throwdown, CrossFit’s biggest competition outside of the Reebok CrossFit Games. Sam, Andre, Andrew and Chris will face a VERY tough day. They have worked so hard to get there. I think sometimes we have this impression of excellent CrossFitters that involves some idea that they are “lucky” or somehow privileged or something that places them outside of our own experiences in the gym. Having watched these guys for many months it is clear that nothing could be further from the truth. They have been amazingly strict with their eating for several weeks, in the gym every spare moment, sore, exhausted, discouraged, and nervous. I hope they don’t take this the wrong way, but in truth, there isn’t anything special about these four except their willingness to suffer and their excitement for their sport! They simply put in a bunch of hard work. Chris has been putting in hard work as an athlete for years, but Sam, especially, is quite new to this level of work. I hope that they have as much fun, personal success and adventure today and tomorrow as they can possibly have! Enjoy!!!
 The Supporting Cast
This week both the Daily CrossFit Class and the Blueprint class experienced the challenge of holding static positions under fatigue. Daily CrossFit held planks following lateral burpees and Blueprint did chin-over-bar hold following a 400m run. It’s tough to maintain those positions when your breathing is seriously labored and it is tough to mentally overcome your fatigue to stay tight and relax enough to hold a challenging position! Shout out to Jason P. who accumulated 1:50 chin-over-bar-hold during his three rounds. Mark B. wanted to beat him…
Don’t forget to send in your t-shirt slogan ideas to carl@crossfitworks.com!
 
At last. An opportunity to spend many hours talking about food, nutrition, health and wellness! My friend Ryan Koch and I are going to lead/teach an eight hour “class” on the evolutionary approach to food, eating and wellness. Ryan and I share a belief in the wisdom of the diets of our long-ago ancestors. We share a fascination with researching the eating and other lifestyle practices of the world’s healthiest peoples. We also share a willingness to try things out on ourselves (and our families). Ryan and I do have quite different personal health experiences, and different personal emphases in our nutrition work, so that means you will have the chance to be exposed to a wider range of applications of this nutrition work than if only one of us was teaching. Ryan is absolutely going to give you new ways to think about your health and your body and I am always about the practical side of things. This class is not going to be a Paleo-dogma lesson. We are not going to turn down any food wisdom. In this day and age we need all the wise food ways we can muster.
The class will take place on four Sunday evenings, from 5pm to 7pm, beginning Feb 5th. The group will be small enough so that we can certainly include individual needs and interests. You can learn more about the class, and about Ryan, at Primal Plan (www.primalplan.com). Call 520.623.6200 or email me, jen@crossfitworks.com if you have any questions.
No, not that kind of t-shirt contest. The kind where you get to showcase your cleverness. We are ready to order new t-shirts. You guys are always coming up with cool t-shirt slogans, so let’s use them! I have one rule. I have to be happy explaining your t-shirt slogan to my 9 year old. We aren’t big on censorship or anything like that, but “Nice Snatch” isn’t going on a CrossFit Works t-shirt. You get my drift. You guys are cleverer than that anyway. Thanks to Mac for reminding me to make this into a contest!! You have until January 21st, Saturday at noon to submit your slogan ideas. Pay close attention. Do not submit your ideas to the comments here. Send your ideas to carl@crossfitworks.com with the subject heading “T-shirt Contest”.
January 21st from 9:30 to 11:30 will be the first opportunity you have to come and assess your current fitness relative to the skill checklist for the Daily CrossFit class. On January 21st, Saturday at 9:30 we will begin taking people through the skill checklist that will eventually determine which program is the best fit for you. We will give you more information in the next few days, but remember that you might want to come that day and work through the skill check list even if you know you won’t accomplish all the skills. It will be a powerful tool in setting your individual training goals. Remember too, that our skill check list is not a “who’s who” of CrossFit movements, but an assessment of your strength and conditioning foundation with an eye toward being a well-rounded, fit person who has the mobility, musculature and kinesthetic awareness to be safe under many physical demands.
I hope some of you made it to the remembrance events around town this weekend. Congratulations to Mac, who finished very well at the CrossFit competition on Saturday up at CrossFit Now. 4th place I believe?
 Such beautiful overhead position at 5:30am!!
As promised, you have a special guest coming to work with you all for your next few weeks of Wednesday night mobility hours. It is really easy to get stuck in our CrossFit comfort-zone with our resistance bands, foam rollers and lacrosse balls. That is our recovery rut. You all already have a pretty big bag of tricks regarding the lacrosse balls and foam rollers. Time for something new to throw in your Recovery Toolbox.
We also get stuck in a mental/emotional rut often times as athletes. We get stuck on the same problems in our workouts, we have the same response to challenges. It is important not to forget that one of the benefits we can all get from our CrossFit training is carryover to any challenge in our regular lives: increased confidence for example or ability to persevere under uncomfortable conditions. We are extremely fortunate to have, in our little town of Tucson, a yoga teacher whose personal approach to teaching yoga is centered on how yoga can carryover to any challenge in your life. As CrossFitters we primarily think of yoga as a time to focus on stretching. We sometimes feel a little out of place in a yoga studio-our clothes are different, we don’t know the names of the poses, we don’t know the chants, it is so…quiet. But, yoga has quite a lot more to offer CrossFitters than stretching. The practise of yoga is the practise of developing neuromuscular awareness. Yoga is the practise of developing an intuitive feeling for which muscles should be firing and which should be resting. Yoga is the practise of learning how to control your breath during exertion. Yoga is the practise of clearing the mind of any obstacles to action. Yoga is the process of learning how to not waste your precious energy on non-essential movements. Yoga is the practise of controlling your rest and controlling your exertion. Dr. Brian Hewlett will share with you an active Yoga practise that is always connected to teaching you to produce the results you desire.
Brian’s class here at CrossFit Works will be an ongoing series dedicated to people for whom the practise of yoga is not an end in itself, but a means to your personal goals. He has an extensive and varied background including being an athlete, coaching athletes and teaching philosophy. This class will be free to all CrossFit Works members. FREE TO ALL CROSSFIT WORKS MEMBERS. It is also open to anyone in the community who would like to come. For information on how to attend Brian’s Wednesday night-CrossFit Works class for free, if you are not a CrossFit Works member, go here: http://yogaacrossamerica.com/?page_id=42
The Yoga for Athlete’s class here at CrossFit Works is part of a much bigger project that Brian is launching called “Yoga Across America”. Visit Yoga Across America for more information. But check out the seriously CrossFit-friendly Yoga Across America motto: “Any Yoga is Better than No Yoga”. Perfect. See you this Wed at 6pm.
Really these guys don’t need any introductions. You just need to know they are wearing new hats!! Carl and I have always known that the best way to know if someone is a good match for your gym is to get to know them as athletes first. That way you get to see how they hold up under pressure, how they conduct themselves as representatives of the gym, how they respond to different coaching challenges. We don’t always have the chance to do that, but this time we did!
We’d like to announce that Andre Matus, will be coaching at CrossFit Works.
“Andre has been a member of the Pascua Fire Department for 6 years as a Firefighter/EMT. He was introduced to CrossFit from a fellow firefighter and from that point on he has enjoyed every moment of it. Andre is a Certified Crossfit Level 1 Instructor, and also holds a certification in Crossfit Olympic Lifting. Crossfit has provided a sense of balance and health to his life and he enjoys sharing this gift of CrossFit with others. He has a passion for helping people succeed and provides a motivating and effective training atmosphere.”
Andre’s enthusiasm for CrossFit is unparalleled and his outgoing, laid-back style is very comforting in the gym. He has experience coaching group CrossFit classes and is looking forward to getting to know more of you all!
We would also like to announce an expansion for Mark L. who coaches the CrossFit Kids classes. I often think that the most useful coaching seminar I have been to was the Kids cert. If you can teach a kid to squat and deadlift, you can teach an adult! Mark has the extremely enviable ability to demonstrate movement brilliantly. He possesses wonderful mobility and neuromuscular awareness, developed during many years of wrestling and motocross. Mark is a very patient coach, but not at the expense of moving you toward greater performance. Mark holds CrossFit Level I certification, CrossFit Kids Certification and USA Weightlifting Club Coach certification. We are lucky that Mark has a little bit more time in his schedule which is allowing him to do more with you all! Mark will be the coach of the 5:30pm class. If you are lucky you’ll get a white board chat like the kids!
Next week we will be happy to see Ben back from his world travels too! Ben will be moving from the 5pm class to the 6am class.
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The Conditioning and the “Ready Position”
